California Names Mountain after Marine Who Died in Combat

Staff Sgt. Sky Mote was killed in Afghanistan in 2012. He received the Navy Cross posthumously. Photo courtesy of the Defense Department
>

26 Jan 2018

The Sacramento Bee|By
Noel Harris

Sky Point is the new name of a California mountain.

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock recently announced that legislation to rename the mountain after slain Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Sky Mote has been signed by President Donald Trump.

H.R. 381, which was re-introduced and passed last year, was originally approved by House officials in 2015, but never made its way to the Senate, according to a report by McClatchy's D.C. Bureau.

"It's a small token of the gratitude of our nation," McClintock said last year, adding the renaming serviced an "irredeemable debt to an eternally grieving family."

Mote, a native of El Dorado, was 27 when he was killed Aug. 10, 2012, while serving in Afghanistan. He graduated from Union Mine High School in 2003 and enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after.

"We will not allow the young men from our region who perished in service to our country to be forgotten," McClintock said in a statement last week. "Nor will we ever forget the daily anguish of the Gold Star families they leave behind. This bill is a small token of the commitment of our country and our community to remember the fallen and to grieve with their families."

Sky Point, a roughly 11,240-foot Sierra Nevada peak in the John Muir Wilderness, honors Mote, who died while serving as an explosive ordinance disposal technician with the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion. McClintock's release says the Mote family often camped and hiked in the region where the peak is located.

Mote has also posthumously received the Navy Cross, the Corps' second-highest honor for bravery in combat.